With the advent of wood burning stoves as a means for reducing home heating costs, there has been a considerable increase in chimney fires, principally due to the accumulation of unburned creosote within the chimney itself, above the stove or fireplace within which wood is burned. While such creosote can be removed periodically by proper maintenance, such maintenance is often not accomplished, and sparks and burning particles rising upwardly through the chimney act to ignite the accumulated unburned creosote resulting in a chimney fire. Since the fire itself is within a confined space, not easily reachable, it is difficult to put out. Further, since the chimney opens at its lower end diectly into the building interior, either by way of an open fireplace or by way of a stove pipe attachment to the stove, any attempts to put the chimney fire out by water from a conventional fire hose, which emits a large volume stream under certain circumstances does not rapidly extinguish the blaze, and under all circumstances, floods the interior of the home residence or other building.
Attempts have been made to extinguish such fireplace chimney fires in by spraying water on the flame by a device put into the fireplace, i.e., the bottom of the chimney, and spraying the liquid upwardly. This is ineffective, particularly where the point of the fire is well above the access to the chimney from the fireplace, that is, at its lower end.
Further, where attempts have been made to reach the point of the fire from the top of the chimney, such attempts have been frustrated by the accumulation of the creosote which is the source of the fire. Further spraying from the top of the chimney results in an ineffective water treatment to the surface area of the chimney interior which bears the creosote under combustion.
It is, therefore, a primary object of the present invention to provide an improved chimney fire snuffer which may be readily attached to a conventional garden watering hose, can be lowered through the chimney from the top, which readily penetrates the accumulated creosote and which quickly extinguishes the blaze with minimum application of water, virtually eliminating water damage to the chimney or the building interior.